Monday, June 30, 2014

Do You Pass the Israel Test?

Best selling author George Gilder is teaching a course at Prager University where he argues that the Jews of Israel are good for the Arabs.

I would argue that Jews tend to indeed be an industrious lot, so that point must be given to Gilder. Further, any businessman of any ethnic background, who is successful, is generally raising the standard of living of a community. But Gilder completely ignores a very big part of the very complex Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which is the political art, rather than business. And it includes Israeli occupation of Arab land. Thus, when we are talking about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, we are talking about government coercion and violence and not freedom and business successes. Gilder fails to take this into account in his so-called test. The governments here are the problem, not lack of appreciation of Jewish businessman. People tend to transact with other groups, if there is value in a transaction, even if they tend not to like the group as a whole. That is all that is needed for a prosperous economy. Governments are the ones that get in the way.